Royal absolutism in France bestows all power in Louis XVI. The Declaration of the Rights of Man repudiated the nature of the French government, where the monarch was the sole legislative body. Article VII declares, “Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its [the law’s] foundation.” This declaration was profound in it’s creation, because it outlined an assignment of political power to eligible individuals, property-owning men who were 25 years or older that paid taxes. The National Assembly augmented Rousseau’s position that “the general will alone may direct the forces of the State to achieve the goal for which it was founded, the common good.... Sovereignty is indivisible.” The general will
